


gray skies and gray eyes

by fishscalesky



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Arguing, Eventual Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Melancholy, Road Trips, basically melancholy, but also not??, flashbacks because of course, i didn’t mean for that to happen it just did, it isn’t graphic and isn’t blood, no more tags for me i’ve lost my tagging privilege, remus’s mental health is not great, stiltedness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28348971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishscalesky/pseuds/fishscalesky
Summary: Sirius fiddles with the label on his bottle of water and cuts himself off before he can even start to say something.Isn’t that just an example of who we are now, Remus thinks wryly and a little bit desperately.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 63





	gray skies and gray eyes

**Author's Note:**

> okay so honestly i like to describe Sirius’s eyes as “grey” most of the time and only “gray” when they’re bluish it especially dark. that’s just how my brain registers the different spellings, i guess. 
> 
> i should have posted this in November, but i didn’t, so here it is, the product of two days and a lot of thinking. 
> 
> thanks for reading <3

James underestimates his ability to act perfectly normal with the world falling apart around him, of this Remus is sure. 

“And then,” James is saying challengingly as the two of them stand before him like scolded children, “You’ll be forced to resolve whatever _this_ is.” He waves a hand at the slightly too-wide space between their bodies like he can dispel it through force of will alone. 

Whatever this is. Two weeks of stilted conversation. Two weeks of the inability to meet Sirius’s eye without the _remembering_ stealing his breath away. Two weeks of composing apologies in his head and being too cowardly to say them aloud. 

And so, of course, sticking them together in confinement for an undetermined amount of time is little more than brilliant. James’s foolproof plan is nothing short of the plot of the decade. 

_Keep your head down, act like a fully functional human being, and for fucks’ sake, Remus, don’t slip up again._

Remus doesn’t look at Sirius, instead choosing James to meet eyes with. 

James looks profoundly disappointed in his closest friends. (Peter is inside, hunting for cheese. He would be seeing Remus and Sirius off on their journey, only Sirius pissed him off yesterday and his bruised ego has not yet recovered). 

James stares hard at Remus, then pointedly shifts his gaze to the car behind them as if to say _you. Go in there_. It’s gray, nondescript, not enough space for two men with an infinity of unspoken words. 

Remus’s shoulders slump with a nod. He’s long since learned that trying to argue with James on anything he’s so dead set on is a fruitless waste of time. Sirius knows this too, because he sighs in acquiescence. James drops the keys into Sirius’s open palm, leaning close to whisper something Remus doesn’t catch and doesn’t particularly want to. 

He and Sirius don’t need James to send them on some trust-building bonding exercise thing. They will be fine just to exist, revolving around each other, overlapping still, but much less than before. 

That would be fine. _Fine._ Remus would deal, and Sirius— he would too, Remus is sure. And _it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine._

It’s not. 

James stops in front of Remus, his expression solemn. Remus has the sudden urge to laugh, or yell, or Apparate somewhere far away so he can clear his head and be alone and find himself without the influence of the people he’s made his world. 

The one person who is his world. 

“Moony,” James’s voice is low and catering, “I don’t want us to be broken. Not on my wedding day.”

It sounds like an ultimatum, which Remus could be irritated by, but just like that, Remus’s resentment dissipates like mist on a sunny day. James has always been hurt by anyone fighting. Especially in the ranks of the Marauders. Remus won’t be responsible for hurting his friend on one of the most important days of his life. 

“Yeah,” he sighs, tense shoulders dropping. “It’ll be okay.”

James hugs him. Remus hugs back, harder. 

“Remember,” calls James behind them just as they get to the car, “You’re _Muggles.”_

“Joy,” Sirius murmurs under his breath. He pointedly looks askance at Remus. “I suppose being the responsible one, you’ll take my wand?”

“I don’t give a fuck about your wand,” Remus says tightly. His own is disguised as a pen and tucked into the specially tailored pocket in the right sleeve of his jacket. 

That hidden pocket was a present from Sirius, as a matter of fact. Remus runs his tongue along his teeth, a thinking habit, and sighs sharply through his nose.

He can _do_ this.

They get to the car. Remus unlocks it. 

“I should drive?” Sirius worries his lower lip between his teeth. 

“No, I will. You should get some sleep in.” He knows Sirius could use the rest because he could _hear_ what Sirius was doing last night, talking endlessly on the phone with _Tom,_ and he’d had to wrap himself up in three blankets and stuff his pillow over his face, but that hadn’t drowned out the incessant acid looping through his own head.

Sirius winces and ducks his head. “Right.” He hesitates. “I probably should’ve just slept.”

“Hm,” Remus bites off bitterly. He’s so obviously jealous he wants to scream and hit his head on the side of the car because _Sirius_ is _right here_ and he’s being _so transparent._

“Right,” Sirius says again. “Well. Ready to go?” He looks worried about Remus. Remus’s fingers itch to pull that expression off his face— _fuck you, I’m perfectly_ _fine_ _._

He sighs once more, quietly. Sirius can’t help but worry about everyone, less obviously than James, but he does it. 

Now Remus wants to reach out to smooth the wrinkles between Sirius’s brows, but Sirius still shies away from his touch the way Remus shies from Sirius’s, so he leaves the distance unbridged. 

He drives. 

It’s still very early, and Sirius settles into the passenger seat with a sigh. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” replies Remus flatly. Sirius nods. 

Twelve minutes later, he’s breathing softly and steadily, eyes closed and knees brought up to his chest. His dark eyelashes feather over the pale curve of his cheek. 

A string winds tight in Remus’s chest looking at him. He’s afraid of what will happen when it snaps, but it always snaps with Sirius, leading him to do things like tell him he’s pretty, touch his hand, his arm, his shoulder, and even—

He focuses on the road. 

—

Remus nudges Sirius awake. He opens his eyes slowly and tugs on an eyelash that’s gotten tangled up with the others while he was asleep. 

Sirius mumbles sleepily, “Where’re we?” 

“Somewhere off the road,” Remus says quietly, parking the car and turning the engine off. “Near the water. Thought we might go for a little walk.”

Keeping active is good, isn’t it?

“Time’s it?”

Remus checks his watch. “Half past seven.”

“Mmph. Hm. Okay. Coming.”

“Great.” Remus steps out of the car and stretches, reveling in the crisp, cool air and lovely gray sky. The sea is at their feet, wide and open and flat. The waves are broken by a sandbar in the distance, curving across, and so the water is calm. 

Sirius makes his way over to Remus standing in the dunes, wincing as he skirts around the rabbit droppings littering the grass and sand. 

Sirius surveys. Remus surreptitiously watches him survey. 

The light breeze lifts his hair off his forehead and caresses it off his shoulders, ruffling the fine dark mass of it, which Remus can’t be blamed for wanting to see. This is what he tells himself, anyway.

Sirius squints at the horizon. His narrowed eyes take on the hue of the gray-blue sky. “It’s nice here,” he says, looking askance to Remus. 

“It is,” Remus agrees. 

Sirius considers the beach and then Remus.

Remus turns his gaze to the sky and lets it linger there. There’s so much to see. 

The sky is a palette of grey and white, soft pink near the horizon, dramatic and streaked with clouds like brushstrokes. Remus could trace his fingers over the whorls and curves of it, soft blooms of pale color and raincloud shadows.

Sirius blows on his hands and tucks them into his fingerless black gloves. “Chilly,” he comments and Remus assents distantly. 

No, Remus thinks. The sky isn’t the palette, the sky is the canvas, the windswept, paint-daubed masterpiece. 

He says as much to Sirius, working, always working on being open, sharing some of the thoughts he has too many of. He’s filled with motivation, suddenly, that somehow, that this can work. If he keeps his distance and if he is the person Sirius should see, that Sirius wants to see, it’ll _all be okay._ It’ll be _just like it was before._

Remus wants that. 

He wants that so much it hurts.

Sirius smiles at the words Remus spills, poetry maybe if he tried, his eyes filled with such soft affection Remus wants to hold him and protect him from every sharpness the world has to offer. 

The moment passes and they’re back on that beach, wind blowing and water lapping the red-brown sand, and Remus and Sirius are quietly not acknowledging everything that’s changed.

“Can I change into Padfoot?” asks Sirius to break the silence, already bouncing with anticipation. (Sirius hates silence. Remus could live in it. Sirius has begun to follow his lead, and so now they both live surrounded by the echoed buzzing of not speaking).

Remus makes a gesture to convey _go ahead, just don’t eat my shoes,_ as Sirius has done before _._ Sirius screws up his face in concentration (Sirius’s pre-Animagus face is Remus’s favorite, because Sirius is rarely cute, he’s stunning. But just before he changes, he’s _cute,_ and Remus is content just to see it).

Padfoot jumps into action, pouncing on a little crab inching by Remus’s foot. Sand flies up, but the crab safely skitters away. 

Before he can think and reconsider what he’s doing, because this is second nature, Remus fondly ruffles Padfoot’s ears and scritches just how he likes. He’s gratified by the way Padfoot tilts his head back and squints in enjoyment. “Are those rabbit prints?”

Padfoot jerks upright at his words. Remus pats his shaggy black head a few more times and walks a couple steps away, scrutinizing the tracks and where they lead into holes in the sandbank. “Looks like rabbits are our best bet.” He turns to Padfoot. “Beach bunnies, hey?”

Padfoot lunges forward to bury his nose in the sand, just next to one of the warrens. He snuffles at the grassy bank. 

“Padfoot,” Remus laughs. “Come on, up. You can’t hunt the rabbits.”

Padfoot’s tongue lolls out of his mouth as he cocks his head questioningly. 

“No!” Remus scolds. “If you hunt the beach bunnies, I’ll have to put a leash on you.”

Padfoot yelps, butting Remus’s thigh with his head and knocking him off balance. “Mutt,” he laughs. 

The wind picks up soon enough, chilling them both, even through Remus’s thick jumper and Padfoot’s heavy fur. Sirius reverts back to human, leaping right into chatter as he does so. “I could _smell_ them, Moony, they were all hiding down there.”

Remus flushes at the warm glow in his chest that Sirius calling him _Moony_ again provokes. “So could I, Pads. You scared them half to death with all your barking.”

“I’m a dog! I bark!”

“You terrorize beach bunnies is what you do,” Remus points out matter-of-factly, leaning against the car to swipe dried sand off his feet. 

Sirius rounds the other side. A few seconds later, he gives a disgusted squeal and reappears in Remus’s line of sight, wearing an injured expression. “Moony…”

“You stepped in rabbit scat, didn’t you,” Remus sighs. Sirius nods forlornly. Remus snickers. “Just… wipe it off on the grass.”

Sirius pouts, but he does just that. “Rabbits are gross.”

“Everyone defecates.”

“ _Defecates,”_ Sirius snorts. He swipes his hair out of his eyes and peers at his foot. “Oh _ew,_ it smeared!”

“Not to worry, you’re still pretty,” Remus flung out, uncuffing his trousers. It was a perfectly offhand thing to say, and he and James quite frequently make digs about Sirius’s vanity, but— it’s from _him_ this time.

Sirius goes stiff. 

“I…” Remus avoids Sirius’s eyes, berating himself for forgetting that things aren’t _normal_. “Would you mind driving now?”

Sirius does not mind. He wipes his foot one more time and gets into the car. “Where to?”

His voice is clipped. Remus takes a single cashew from his backpack, wondering if sleeping would settle his churning stomach, and pretends not to notice. “Wherever. If you want to stop to eat…” he trails off. Sirius isn’t paying attention. 

—

He’s lucky Sirius is so adverse to conflict sometimes, especially when it’s Remus, because soon enough, Sirius is back to smiling and nicking the menu right out of his hands as they stand together in front of the counter in a café named Stelle’s Coffee. 

“Mocha?” Sirius peers over Remus’s shoulder at the new menu he’d gotten, ignoring the one in his hands. 

“If you like.” Remus tosses a smile that feels like it’s pulled by a puppeteer’s strings behind him as he puts the menu away and sidles off to inspect the glass case of pastries. 

Despite being paired with the most indecisive motherfucker on this side of the planet, it doesn’t take too long for Sirius and Remus to order and find their seat. 

“Psychedelic fever dream,” says Sirius. 

“Novocaine-induced hallucinatory nightmare,” Remus replies without missing a beat. 

Sirius scowls. 

They’re sitting outside the café, staring across the street at some child’s nightmare, a dentist’s office, and the gaudily decorated the van parked outside it. 

“The tooth is riding a wave,” Remus says in wonder. 

“Surfing,” Sirius corrects, “Surfing on gums, Remus, get it right.”

Remus makes a face to show what he thinks of _that._ “I’m disturbed.”

Sirius grumbles in agreement, slouching down in his chair. The table is littered with the remains of breakfast, a crumb-covered muffin wrapper, two near empty coffee cups, and a plate of half-eaten toast. 

Remus, picking up his cup and pretending to drain it as a distraction, slips two packets of raw cane sugar into his sleeve. 

He looks up. 

Sirius is watching him with something of a smile, but he clears his throat and looks away when he catches Remus catching him. 

Remus restlessly knocks back the rest of his coffee and stands. “I’m going to find the bathroom.”

—

Next stop, moderately city-like city. 

They could exist like this forever, except Sirius must _always_ throw a wrench in Remus’s carefully constructed plans. 

They’re sitting on a bench in the fancy area of the city, observing Saturday night dating show. Women in small dresses and high heels pass by, holding hands with men relentlessly slicking back their hair. They populate the restaurants, drinking the evening away. 

“We should go to a club,” Sirius says. 

“A bar. Not a club,” answers Remus, privately wondering if he could get away with leaving Sirius to his own devices while he sits in the hotel room that they haven’t even been to yet and wallows. 

—

He doesn’t get away with it. The music is loud, Remus’s head is loud. 

Sirius is relentlessly flirted with for the hour and a half they stick it out. Remus feels a little sick. There’s a lipstick stain on Sirius’s neck when he asks Remus if he’s alright. He’s not. 

_Spinning out of control,_ he thinks. _We don’t know what we’re doing and I feel like a kid again. I don’t know where I’m going and who’s going to be there, I can’t do this, I can’t handle this—_

He cuts himself off. He will cope. 

They don’t stay much longer, and he can’t pretend not to be selfishly relieved when Sirius sticks close to him on the way out. 

“Dumb idea,” Sirius says, eyes on the ground. Remus tugs him by the arm as the crosswalk light turns green and they cross the road. “Sorry.”

“S’fine.” Remus has some idea what Sirius was trying to do— bring them a little closer together, get rid of some of the distance and detachment that cloaks Remus and follows him like his very own shadow. It just didn’t work is all. 

Their hotel isn’t too far away, which Remus is thankful for, and he’s fucking ready to get out of the city tomorrow. When he retires, he’s moving to the country and staying there. 

Remus fumbles with the keys to unlock room number 21. Sirius suspiciously eyes the man behind them at the door to his own room. 

“He’s looking at us,” Sirius whispers. 

“Not much I can do about that,” replies Remus under his breath, the key finally clicking in the lock. They hurry inside. 

“Damn, it’s hot in here.” Sirius strips off his jumper, peering around the darkened room. 

Remus walks into the bedroom to check on the beds and stops short. 

“Oh,” Sirius observes, coming up next to him. “Huh.”

Bed, singular. 

They should have checked that. The website said two beds, but he should have checked, he should have made sure, and now it’s too late—

Remus goes to the bathroom and locks the door to hyperventilate in peace. _He’s going to think I did this on purpose, oh fuck, what if he does?_ He couldn’t even get a room without screwing it up. Fuck—

“Remus?” Sirius calls, knocking on the wall. Time has passed, some of it at least. “I’ve found a takeaway Asian, what do you want?”

They order Japanese from the takeaway place down the street and eat it in silence.

Sirius sets his fork down. “I can sleep on the couch.”

“Sirius, you’re a foot taller than the couch,” Remus pointed out, shamelessly exaggerating. Remus would find himself uncomfortably tall for the couch, and Sirius, being around a head shorter, would probably be perfectly fine. 

“So...” asks Sirius hesitantly. 

“Just…” Remus tiredly rubs his forehead. He can’t navigate this. He wishes it was back how it used to be, when Sirius would clamber into the bed with him without a second thought. Now, they have to make negotiations. The melancholy of the change almost makes him cry. “Do whatever you want. There isn’t extra bedding for the couch but I can give you the comforter and pillows, but the bed’s pretty big too, so—” he cuts himself off and stuffs another pork dumpling into his mouth. 

Sirius fiddles with the label on his bottle of water and cuts himself off before he can even start to say something. 

_Isn’t that just an example of who we are now,_ Remus thinks wryly and a little bit desperately. 

—

Halfway through the night, Remus is fidgeting with the sheet pulled over himself. It’s cold. He really didn’t think this through, giving Sirius the only heavy blanket. 

Then another warm body is slipping in next to his, angling away, and a blanket is spread over the two of them. 

“Hi,” mumbles Remus sleepily, feeling the need to acknowledge Sirius being here. 

“Mm, hi.”

He dreams in disjointed pictures and snatches of dialogue. Somewhere along the line his dreams switch to flashbacks, but he’s too tired to keep himself awake. 

_“Come on, Moony, let’s have a little fun.” Sirius pouted, the glittery black eyeliner that Remus had carefully applied smudged around his eyes. It looked hot, but everything on Sirius looked hot._

_“I’m not doing it,” Remus laughed. “Pads, fuck off.”_

_“Please!” Sirius lunged for his arm and captured it up to the elbow. “No one else will!”_

_“Even more reason I shouldn’t!”_

_Even your boyfriend won’t? Remus thought privately. ‘The Boyfriend’, Tom, and Sirius had a casual on-off again relationship. He rarely participated in Sirius’s ideas, so maybe this wasn’t out of the ordinary._

_Remus hated Tom. To say in the least._

_The music turned up louder, drowning out his protests. It was probably James messing with the sound. Sirius’s face lit up as if Remus had given verbal confirmation (he had_ _not_ _) and he jumped excitedly._

_“Why, Moony! You’re a wild spirit, who knew?”_

_“I’m not going swimming in the pool at midnight!” Remus tried to shout, but he stumbled into some drunk girl, maybe Mary, and his words cut off._

_“Damn right you’re going swimming at midnight!” Sirius’s ebullience was contagious. He bounced around, dragging Remus through the crowd to the pool._

—

_“Fuck off.” Remus folded his arms over his chest. Somehow Sirius had gotten him to take his shirt and trousers off, but he refused to remove his shorts._

_Sirius was clad only in boxers too, but he was dipping his toe in the pool to test temperature and readying to disrobe and jump._

_Remus wouldn’t be able to_ take _it if he was naked with Sirius. Fuck, why did the universe decide throw things like this at him—_

_Sirius gave him a challenging grin. “Ready or not, here I—”_

_Remus tackled him before he could strip further, pulling Sirius’s flailing body into the pool with him._

_They both went under. Sirius’s elbow hit Remus’s stomach and he inhaled water, abruptly closing his mouth, but it filled his throat._

_“Remus?”_

_He was on the surface, being dragged to to side, coughing uselessly._

_Sirius guided him to the ladder. “Hold on to this,” he said, concerned, and put a steadying hand on Remus’s back. “Hey. Keep coughing, yeah?”_

_“Fucking,” Remus managed, but he hacked again, trying to get rid of that tickle in his chest and the chlorine burning his throat._

_Sirius rubbed up and down his back. “Hey, I’m sorry for elbowing you. In my defense, pulling me in was a fucking dumb idea.”_

_“I’m not sorry,” Remus choked, taking as deep breaths as he could manage. “I’d do it— I’d do it again.”_

_“Lunatic.”_

_“Maniac.”_

_Remus grinned and turned his head. Sirius’s face was right there, eyes wide and soft in the dim green-blue light from the pool, lips curved into a small smile._

_Looking at him right then, Remus couldn’t figure out why he thought Sirius didn’t want him back._

_“My knight in shining armor,” Remus said quietly, testing the waters. So to speak._

_Sirius smirked, shifting a little, grabbing the ladder with one hand and ducking into the water to smooth his hair out of his face. When he resurfaced, he said, “Always so theatrical.”_

_Remus scoffed. “As if I’m the dramatic one here,” he emphasized._

_“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” Sirius pushed him off the ladder, giggling._

_Remus blew water in Sirius’s face. “I mean it’s you, dumbass.”_

_Sirius stilled. “It’s me?”_

_Remus got the feeling they were talking about something very different, now. “Yeah. It’s— it’s always been you.”_

_Sirius’s eyes were so open and honest, and they were fixed on Remus’s lips, fuck it, but they were._

_Remus could feel adrenaline still churning through his veins and lending him the strength to push forwards. He didn’t let himself waste another second._

_Remus leaned in and left the slightest kiss on Sirius’s water droplet-adorned lips. He tasted like chlorine and salt, warm and soft._

_Sirius didn’t reciprocate, but he didn’t pull away, either. When Remus backed away a few inches, dread already tugging at his insides, he thought he saw a flash of hurt in Sirius’s grey eyes, shining green with the reflection from the pool._

_Neither of them spoke._

_They sat in the quietly rippling water, lit from below with turquoise, staring at one another. Most of Sirius’s face was in shadow._

_“Sirius, I’m sor—”_

_“Remus,” Sirius started carefully at the same time. He flinched. “I don’t know what… but I…”_

_“I’m sorry,” Remus repeated. His voice couldn’t go dull now, Sirius was going to think he was upset Sirius hadn’t kissed him back, Sirius was going to jump to conclusions if he hadn’t already. Could he say he was drunk and laugh and move on? Could he apologize, over and over, and beg Sirius to forget it ever happened?_

_“I…” Sirius rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, sinking a little lower in the water._

_Remus felt cold. “Look, you don’t need to say anything. I’m sorry, I’m not sure what came over me.”_

_“Yeah, um. I think it’s best if I…”_

_“Sirius, wait.” Remus grabbed Sirius’s arm, immediately letting go when Sirius flinched at the touch. Remus coiled in on himself, just a little. How had he fucked everything up this much? In so short a time?_

_If he closed his eyes, maybe he could go back in time to before he ruined something that wasn’t perfect, but it was enough. It was_ _enough_ _._

_“What?” Sirius was waiting, swirling one finger around on the surface of the pool and skillfully not meeting Remus’s questing gaze. Remus dropped his eyes in surrender. “What is it?”_

_“Can nothing change?” Remus asked hesitantly, unsure whether he even deserved to ask that question. “It won’t, right? I made a mistake and I’m really fucking sorry for making you uncomfortable, but— I don’t know what made me think I... and I don’t want to—”_

_I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you, please don’t leave me._

_“Of course,” Sirius cut him off, trying for a smile. It was more of a grimace, but— he tried. “Of course nothing’s changed, Remus.”_

_With that he swam a few meters away and pulled himself out of the pool, water streaming down every inch of exposed skin. Remus was sure he was already regretting his state of undress, because now he knew, he knew Remus was queer and that then he’d gone and fucked it all to pieces._

_Remus wrapped his arms around himself and bit his bottom lip hardly. When he let go, tracing it with his tongue, he felt the deep indents._

_Remus loosed a breath, muttering “What the fuck, Remus, what the fuck, Remus, you fucking bastard,” over and over._

_Things were not the same. Things had changed._

Remus wakes early the next morning and goes to watch the sunrise over the tops of buildings. He listens to birds swooping overhead, spinning and calling, and wishes he could fly away from all his problems. 

_Catalogue of what Remus Lupin can see_

_Day whatever of the long haul_

  * _one beer bottle (half-empty. Sirius would drink it if I dared him to.)_


  * (fuck that, I’m not going to think about things like that. I know what will make me spiral.)


  * one rickety bench. I think if I sat on it, it would fall to pieces. 


  * some sort of succulent (unidentified) on the equally rickety/decrepit table. It’s green and kind of pinkish. 


  * my extra pen. The ink’s sometimes blue and sometimes black and sometimes red. Remember? I’ve had it since I was seventeen and Pete forgot my birthday and gave me what he had in his pocket. 


  * seventy-four tiles. 


  * the sun. Or at least the shadow of the sun, because the clouds have not yet fucked off and so we have a grayish pinkish sunrise. Joyful. 


  * I miss Sirius calling me a sarcastic little shit whenever I did so much as look at him sidelong. I miss all the things I never really thought about. 


  * (He’s awake now.)


  * Fuck this, Lupin out. 



They stop at a café for pies and coffee the next morning. Remus barely says a word except to order, and Sirius seems to pick up on his mood and unwillingness to talk. 

So they don’t talk. 

He should be used to this by now, right? It shouldn’t hurt so much anymore, right?

—

The drive from there is countryside. 

Somewhere in their drive through rolling farmland, it begins to rain. Remus watches as the rain streaks and splashes and feathers the window, greys the sky and blurs the glass. 

It is easy to get lost in this. 

Remus isn’t sure how long he’s been lost, looking out the watery glass at the mist-draped hills, buried deep in thoughts he can’t recall as soon as they flit away.

He startles out of that dreamless, surreal wandering of the land between waking and sleeping as the drive, windshield wipers working gently, past a field of sheep hunkered down in the drizzle. It isn’t Sirius’s voice that breaks him out of his trance (although he can hear the tone Sirius would use, so gentle in his head. He knows how Remus gets, in weather like this, but they’re not exactly _talking_ , and does that mean Sirius has forgotten, or maybe he just doesn’t care now, and—

In fact, Sirius isn’t looking at him at all. His eyes, reflecting the hazy grey of outside, are fixed firmly on the rain-drenched road. 

So responsible.

Sirius glances over, just now noticing that Remus has returned to the land of the living. He clears his throat. “Hey.” There is something melancholy hiding in the recesses of his forced normal tone, and Remus remembers rain is good for neither of them. 

It’s all about the memories. He knows what Sirius thinks of. _A younger brother, lost, crying, refusing help. Lashing out with words that hurt more than anything. The elder brother, crying too. Rain pervading every inch, soaking, dripping, falling._

Remus sees— what does Remus see? He doesn’t see anything, he just _feels._ He feels dim inside, like a candle flame snuffed out but still ignited, struggling to stay lit, to keep this last fragile ember aglow. In the better days, Sirius would call him a sponge, soaking up his atmosphere. 

Remus coughs. He opens his mouth, closes it again. Opens. “Hey.” His voice is raspy with quasi-sleep and thirst. He reaches clumsily for his water bottle and flicks the cap open, taking a long swallow. “Was I out?”

“Don’t think so,” Sirius says lightly. “You were just… staring.”

“Ah.” Remus thinks on this, thinks on Sirius, thinks on whether Sirius will be upset with him if he asks. “Are you okay?”

He doesn’t make his voice soft because Sirius hates being coddled, hates being treated like a box labeled _fragile._

But Remus tries to add meaning to the words, pushing his thoughts into them. _Look, Sirius, please. I care. Look, please, I care about you._ Sirius deserves meaning. 

Remus watches, awaiting the elusive answer.

Sirius doesn’t speak. 

He nods, once, tightly. He does not risk meeting Remus’s eyes, and try however damn hard he might, Remus cannot summon any more words. 

So they drive. In silence. 

The air inside the car is heavy and hot. Remus looks at the drip-drip-drops slick-sliding down the glass like tears and the fog-swathed landscape, bundled in cobwebby mist, and wonders what the hell he thinks he’s doing. 

Time, he has decided, and Sirius agrees when he mentions it, does not exist. 

Remus is lost again. 

The windshield wipers dance their repetitive dance with the rain on the glass, tossing that line of rain back and forth like a mechanical game of catch. The fledgling water doesn’t even get a chance to move freely before it is snatched up again, a cog in a machine. The cycle repeats, and repeats, and repeats. 

It’s sad, so profoundly, deeply sad. Remus’s breath is torn from his chest to join this game, this dance, this give-and-take, give-and-take, give-and-take, take-take-take—

He jerks away from the windshield, seatbelt snapping across his chest, but he’s separate from it, to some extent the detachment is physical. His seatbelt’s locked. Sirius doesn’t flinch nor turn to look. Did Remus expect him to?

Not with this accursed _distance._

The miles of empty space between him and Sirius are sad too, but they’re his own fucking fault, useless waste of space who can’t get anything right that he is.

The thoughts dig their icy claws into him and he knows, he knows, he _knows_ he’s a slave to their whims. But he can’t break free of the spiral. 

Is he even _here?_ He’s never felt so far away, like every worry and concern is so distant, even Sirius next to him is distant. He’s flying, soaring, careless and carefree. He’s so heavy, like a rock, like a feather, and sinking so low, so high above everything else. His existence is conflict, but he’s lucky he doesn’t have to worry about it, because he’s not here. 

It’s rough waves and slate-grey seas, this arm’s length he’s been banished to. It’s rain-lashed shouts and the aching silence of near strangers.

 _What have we become?_ thinks Remus despairingly, and the thought is like a lifeline that breaks just as he takes hold and he is dragged beneath the salty spray, the stormy sea. There is a fierce tumultuous claim laid to Remus’s pitiable self, because only the sea wants him. 

What does it want? Consciousness or body? Remus does not know. He knows only that he wants out, out, _out._ He cannot get out of a moving car on a highway, only he can, technically, but he doesn’t want to go that way, does he?

This again is unknown, and panic pales in the face of the ocean of that unequivocal sadness and desperation yawning deep and wide beneath Remus, around Remus, closing in over his head with thunderous certainty and he is _alone—_

Only—

Remus feels old, so very old. A worn piece of paper grown soft with too much handling. 

He sees grey, slitted. That grey. It’s the grey of Sirius’s eyes.

Sirius. 

He’s not alone. 

Remus grabs this and he clings to it, fingertips to the edge of a cliff, roaring waves on rocks below. Sirius, tangible. Sirius, real. Sirius, whose lips are on Remus’s forehead. Sirius, whose fingers are on Remus’s cheek. One is at the corner of his mouth. He can feel the warmth radiating off Sirius. He’s missed that warmth. 

Remus opens his mouth and holds like that until he can speak, but it’s muffled, as if coming from above water, and his head is under.

“I’m fine,” he says.

Sirius blinks. He blinks again. In the span of a single second he goes from shudderingly terrified to limp with relief. He holds Remus’s hand. “You couldn’t— you couldn’t hear me.”

Oh. The car has stopped, pulled off the road. 

“I love you,” says Remus. Impulsively. 

Sirius’s breath leaves him in a quiet _whoosh._ He kisses Remus’s forehead again, immeasurably sad. Remus wants to ask why. The words stay locked away. 

They drive. Remus sleeps. 

—

Later— could be days, could be months, could be years— Remus feels perfectly okay again. 

That’s what he tells himself, at least. 

It’s only after sleeping ten hours in a bed with starched sheets, standing under a stream of steaming hot water until his body thaws from the rainy cold, and drinking approximately twelve thousand glasses of water that Remus approaches Sirius.

Sirius is on the balcony that smells like cigarette smoke, the balcony holding one table and two chairs off their dingy hotel room, clutching a cold cup of coffee and staring at the sky as if it will present him with neat cursive answers to all the Things That Need Puzzling. It seems Remus is one of those things. 

“Hi,” Remus says. 

Sirius startles. His cup clinks as he drops it. The table is glass. 

Remus watches him recover. When he’s finished, Sirius smiles inquisitively up at Remus as if it’s any other morning. “Hi!”

Remus sits. He doesn’t answer. 

Sirius considers him. 

He’s glad it’s not raining anymore. 

He’s glad it didn’t thunder. He wouldn’t have been awake to comfort Sirius if it did. 

“Are you feeling okay?” 

“Oh, yeah, fine.” Remus waves a hand as if to say _you know how it goes._

This has happened before, of course, but never when they were so at odds. It was never so hard to bridge the gap that neither of them wanted anymore. 

“You’re not _fine_.”

“I am.”

If this is how Sirius would like to play, Remus has a poker face like no one else, and he will _not_ back down. 

Remus and Sirius— they’re different. Sirius will push and pull and fight to get the truth _out_ so they can _talk, resolve, and move on._ Remus will go still. He will pretend and ignore and run until the problem goes away. 

This faceoff feels like a game of tug-of-war. 

“You’re not fine.” Sirius, stubbornly standing by his proclamation. 

Remus lashes, with bite, “Sorry, remind me why you _care?”_

Sirius sags a little at that, but every muscle ratchets with indignation and tension. He’s upset. Not angry yet. Remus feels vague displeasure. For once he wants a fight. 

“Of course I _care,_ Moony, for fucks’ sake!”

“My mistake,” Remus snips acidly. “You’ve a _real_ funny way of showing it.”

Sirius recoils. 

Remus gets up to leave, but Sirius’s hand darts out to trap his wrist, stopping him in place. He may yet get that fight. 

Sirius’s cup spills. He knocks the table as he stands too, facing Remus, and _there_ he is, ferocious grey and lips a line of anger. 

Remus looks down at Sirius’s pale fingers digging into his wrist. It hurts. He pulls sharply away. 

“Tell me _one time,”_ Sirius says, staring Remus down. “ _One time_ I said I didn’t care about you.”

“These aren’t the kind of things you have to say,” Remus spits. 

“Of course I bloody fucking care, you hopeless bastard!” Sirius blazes. 

“Do you?” Remus is yelling, but only because Sirius is yelling, they’re both yelling, someone will hear them. 

“ _Yes!”_

“I doubt that!” The words are coming fast now. Too fast. Remus can’t decipher what they say before they’re gone into the air between him and Sirius, and by the time he figures out what the fuck it is he’s said, it’s too late to spool them back in. “Can you even? Can you give what you haven’t gotten or do your emotions get so fucked up nothing’s quite the way it should be? Your relationships never stick, do they, don’t try and tell me you love _Tom._ Oh please won’t you tell me, Sirius, what’s it feel like to love, because do you even fucking _know?_ If it stared you in the face, would you recognize it?”

His tongue burns with vitriol. He tastes it, a bitter, sharp tang in the back of his throat. 

He’s never hated himself so much. 

Sirius doesn’t recoil to _this_ . He doesn’t go white as a sheet. Sirius never reacts so physically, so obviously, and Remus _knows_ why he’s trained himself to keep silent like this. 

Still, to this day, when he’s lashed at, he shuts down. 

And now? Remus has never seen him so stricken, so drifting, so taken completely off guard he goes still and quiet and terrifyingly empty. 

This is what is happening now. 

It’s his fault. 

—

There are a few things that make up a picture. Images. Snapshots. The images are translated into words. Those make poems, stories, barbs hurled in the heat of fury. 

Remus has so many words about this he wants to share, so many apologies to make and things to say, but Sirius won’t hear him. Remus wouldn’t want to hear himself. 

Sirius shoves past him, so frighteningly emotionless. His face has frozen over, the cracks in his facade sealed over with ice. Remus stumbles back until his spine hits the railing at the edge of the balcony. He could lean over, he could climb over, he could—

Sirius is at the door. His eyes are unnaturally bright and his voice is unnaturally chirpy. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Remus follows him quietly inside and sits on the bed. Sirius acts as if everything is as it was, only he angles his body always away from Remus, and Remus is a little scared by it. 

—

“Sirius, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care.”

“Sirius, I didn’t mean a word of it, it wasn’t fucking true, okay? I lash out when I’m upset, you _can’t_ take me seriously—”

“I said I _don’t care,_ Remus, don’t apologize or excuse yourself or whatever the fuck, I don’t give a shit. It never happened, all right?”

It’s not all right, but Remus retreats. 

And that’s that. 

—

Remus approaches him again, around four in the afternoon. Sirius is writing to James and drawing a stag and a doe in the corner of the paper. He clicks the pen closed and folds the letter when Remus stops by the bed. 

“Sirius,” he says quietly. 

“I’m busy,” he says, monotone. 

“We can’t not talk. When will it stop?”

Sirius slams the pen onto the bedside table. “I really don’t care right now, Remus.”

“But I want—”

“God, just drop it!” Sirius snaps. “You said things you shouldn’t’ve and I shouldn’t have pushed you either, so let’s just shelve it off as a mistake and move on, okay?!”

 _You sound like me saying we should forget about when I kissed you,_ Remus thinks. 

He’s never actually _thought_ that before. He kissed Sirius. He did that, he made that fucking mistake. 

It’s never too late to be honest with yourself, hm?

Remus always thought Sirius was the talk-it-out type, but he’s been less and less like that lately, and Remus is again confronted with the knowledge that people change and not _always_ for the better. 

If they both just continue ignoring the problems and the past, where are they going to end up? Will they grow apart, find it’s easier to _keep_ that distance than to try and close it? 

Remus can’t lose Sirius. He just _can’t._

“So it never happened?” he asks quietly, just a little bit aggressively. 

“No, it _happened_ , but I’m saying it doesn’t matter anymore, so just forget about it. I will.”

 _That’s nice,_ Remus thinks. _Can’t relate._

Sirius gets off the bed. “I’m going to have a shower.”

Remus nods mutely and steps to the side, allowing Sirius to pass. 

When Sirius leaves the bathroom freshly washed, wet hair dripping down his white shirt, he looks at Remus for a few long seconds. 

Remus glances up from his book. “You okay?”

“’Course.” Sirius lays down on the bed at Remus’s feet. “Good book?”

Remus shrugs and wrinkles his nose. “I’m withholding judgment.” 

_We’ll be fine._

They _are_ fine. 

—

There is an abundance of Japanese restaurants to choose from, and dinner is fast approaching (though neither of them is hungry) so Remus lets Sirius pick a more upper-scale one a few blocks away. They wait at the edge of the street, look both ways for gaps between cars big enough for two men to run through, and don’t obey a single crossing sign. 

Inside, Sirius’s posh voice makes its reappearance as he asks for their reservation, by the name of Lupin. Remus wonders why Sirius used his name. 

Remus wonders if Sirius realizes that the restaurant has a booking for _Sirius Lupin._ Remus wonders if that instills the same fierce longing in Sirius as it does him. 

Remus does not say any of this. He looks at Sirius’s eyes, light years away, and tries to close his thoughts off like a dam. A broken dam. 

Sirius thanks the waiter, crisp and enunciated. 

_Hey,_ Remus thinks. _If you wanted Sirius to shut the fuck down and be a broken, stomped-on mess for the rest of the night, you can comment on his voice! Isn’t that a great idea?_

Remus takes that thought and wrings the life out of it. _What the fuck, of course I don’t want to do that, where and why the everliving fuck would you—_

He snaps out of it at waiter’s polite ‘ahem’, looking up. Sirius is waiting for him all the way across the restaurant. Their table is tucked away in a dark back corner, near a large potted plant and a stand full of cutlery and extra menus. 

Remus surveys the restaurant as he takes his seat, observing uncomfortably, _it’s really… fancy,_ for lack of a better word. _Classy._ The walls are painted black like the floor, and the ceiling is white except for a few beams running across. All the accents are black too. He can see his warped reflection in the shiny surface of the table. The music is low and moody. Fuck. 

“So.” Sirius takes a sip of sparkling water, holding the glass almost delicately. 

Remus sips from his own glass of purple-red _something_ that Sirius ordered for him. It makes his mouth zing with sensation and flavor sparks on his tongue. “I like this drink,” he says of it. 

“I thought you might.”

 _Why?_ Remus wants to ask so badly it’s painful. _Why do you shut me out, then say things like this, do things like this; do you have any idea how much this feels like a date, how confused I am, how I_ _want_ _you to be mad at me because you should, and now we’re here and you’re_ _not_ _helping me clarify what we are and where we stand._

 _For fucks’ sake,_ and it’s angry now, _stop toying with me, Sirius. Figure yourself out because goddamnit, at least I know where_ _I_ _am.  
_

_No, Remus, you’re not allowed to be mad. Where is your right to anger? It’s not here, you don’t have it._

“So,” Sirius says again, chomping down on edamame. He always eats the entire thing, casing and beans and all. Remus cringes and adds another pale green bean to the growing pile on his plate. 

“So,” returns Remus, trepidation gathering in his chest from a single dark seed, flowering. He waters it with apprehension and self-loathing and worry. He’s quite good at that. 

“Check-in,” Sirius says, folding his arms on the table and directing his next question pointedly. “You. Are you okay?”

“I’m... fine, Sirius,” Remus says slowly and eats a single edamame from his pile. _Why are you asking if I’m fine? Why am I always worried about?_

_Why are you deflecting? Why can’t I worry about you for once?_

Sirius presses for more, but Remus won’t give it. He’s too busy butterfly kissing salt off his fingertips (Sirius watches with a funny sort of frown twisting his mouth) and drinking that mystery drink that makes his taste buds sing. 

The sparkle is muted, now, in the face of Sirius’s slow picking at the edamame carcasses in the discards bowl. 

Sometimes Remus hates this. Sometimes Remus hates how Sirius brings the joy into any room, yes, but he can suck it out if he so chooses, and then Remus is left bereft of the light that he so craves. 

“Stop it,” Remus bites. Saying the first word of an argument (as he’s sure it will be, unless Sirius whips out newfound skills in de-escalating, but Remus’s temper is a frayed string) is like wavering on the edge of a cliff and he’s just begun to fall. 

No, he’s jumped, and now he has to pray he doesn’t break when he hits the bottom. 

Sirius drops the edamame casing he’s been fiddling with. “Stop what?”

“You know what.” The string is there and it’s sharp now, tight around his ribs.

“I actually don’t.”

“Stop deciding how I’m going to feel.” It’s euphoric, isn’t it, to talk? “You know how fucking _charismatic_ you can be, Sirius, stop trying to make me feel it.”

“I’m _not,”_ Sirius denies all accusations, but his eyes are a little too wide.

“You _are._ I can’t—” Remus doesn’t know what he would say next, something too scathing maybe, amost definitely something he’ll regret, and so the waiter is a lightsaver, really. 

Sirius exhales and looks away from Remus. 

Remus does the same, looking to the waiter with cordiality fixed on his lips. He orders veggie rolls and miso soup, doing his best to smile. Sirius, recovered and charming as ever, orders tuna sushi and agidashi tofu, which Remus plans to steal off his plate. 

They’re alone again, as alone as they can be, but Remus doesn’t think anyone else in this restaurant is very interested in the two men grasping at the straws of their past in the corner, nor Remus, quietly preparing to break down across from the person he loves too much and too painfully. 

Their threads are pulled tight in some places, on the verge of snapping, and far too loose in the others. The slackness may very well cause the web of strings to disintegrate around them. 

“You can’t what?” Sirius’s voice is quiet but he snaps his chopsticks apart with vehemence. 

“I miss you,” Remus says instead. He doesn’t have an answer to what he _can’t._ But he misses Sirius and sometimes it’s worse when he’s right in front of him. 

“I’m right here.”

“I know, but…”

Remus bites the inside of his cheek and looks down. He’s a little surprised to see his hands folded in his lap. When did they get there?

There’s a silence Remus can’t bring himself to break, and Sirius is sullenly Not Speaking. 

“I wish we could go back to before.” Remus tries. 

“I feel like I read somewhere you can’t change the past, that’s the whole point of it,” Sirius says, too sharply, and Remus feels the prick of his words. 

“I’m—”

No, he can’t talk, he’s going to ruin it, this tenuous _there must be space between us always_ arrangement, mutual understanding they have going on. He’s going to sit there and apologize and rip it to shreds like he does and he won’t even _mean_ to, he won’t do it on purpose but it’ll happen, and it’ll all crumble under his feet. 

How has so much time passed that their waiter is setting down food? Remus murmurs a thank you but he’s not sure if it’s heard or if it’s even said. Sirius’s hair is a loose raven sheet falling over his temple and obscuring those shadowed silver eyes when he tilts his head, which he does. He’s hiding. 

Remus pushes his chair back and stands abruptly. Sirius startles, but Remus jerks his head towards the bathroom and Sirius lowers his eyes. 

This is his fault; it’s all his fault. He should have kept his fucking mouth shut. All he causes is problems. 

All he can hear is his own labored breathing as he shoves the heavy black door labeled ‘MEN’ open with a bang he flinches at. The bathroom— three stalls, two sinks and a cheerful candle— is mercifully empty. 

A buzzing, aching itch builds under his skin, the kind that undulates and hisses into the cobwebby, viscous dark corners of his brain, _hurt. Make it hurt._

Candle. Fire is hot. 

Remus hovers his hand over the flame, but that’s _too_ hot. He cups the glass jar and it’s searing but not _too_ searing and the heat builds, little by little, which he can handle, and he can look at himself in the mirror and watch himself whisper hateful things and watch his eyes go deader and deader. 

He’s been such a useless piece of shit, hasn’t he, sitting across from Sirius with his fucked-up self, forcing his company on to him, saying _I miss you_ and _I wish_ like anything he says will ever fucking matter. 

Remus inhales sharply. The candle stutters on his exhale but stays strong, pulsing and heating his skin. The counter is sharp and bites into his hip. That’s good too, that, maybe he can push forward harder and hold the candle tighter and _feel. Atone. Make it better._

Remus dully watches the fire. He likes fire, it doesn’t give a shit about his problems. It’s just there. He used to think Sirius was fire, wild and unpredictable and beautiful. Now, he sees that _he_ is fire. Sometimes nice to be around, will give heat to warm their frozen hearts, but people tire of him and leave and put him out, pour sand and water and turn their backs on his pained hisses. He doesn’t have control, all he has is conflict and fury and flame. 

Remus flinches. 

_Hey,_ the fire says, pulsing and dancing. _If you want to touch that’s cool. Might burn you though but I don’t think you care. Am I right? Am I?_

Remus rests his forehead on the mirror. It’s cool to the touch. He doesn’t care about the print of his forehead will leave on the glass. He’s buzzing and he’s silent and still and he can’t feel anything but sensation. 

The words loop through his head, in his own voice. _Waste of space, pathetic, useless fuck,_ and they morph into Sirius’s voice, and James’s, and Lily’s, and Peter’s, until everyone is in his head hating him so _loudly_ and his throat is so tight it hurts to breathe. 

“Remus?”

The door opens to pull Sirius in. Remus jumps like he’s been shocked, away from the candle, which Sirius’s eyes dart to. Remus cringes uselessly. _Please don’t notice please don’t put the pieces together please care about me please don’t care about me please leave please, please, please stay._

In an instant Sirius has him flush against his chest, arms winding around Remus and holding him tightly. 

“Remus,” he breathes anxiously into Remus’s hair, holding him, but Remus’s traitorous brain wonders detachedly when Sirius is going to let go and step back and leave him and how much it will hurt and _stop touching I feel it too much._

He ducks his head and squirms. 

“Remus, please. I miss you too,” Sirius is fumbling to get his words out, and he’s saying everything Remus ever wanted him to, but he needs _out._ ”I’m sorry too, I should have done so much different— I’m sorry for—”

“Sirius, stop—” Remus fights his grip and Sirius lets him go like he’s hot, taking a step back. Or three. He really _is_ going to leave. Remus wraps his arms around himself and feels himself shaking, or maybe that’s just the world. Maybe the whole world is shaking and he’s the only one that’s still. 

His hand stings and he’s not sure why— wait, there’s the candle flickering, that’s right. That was dumb, because Sirius saw. Oh _fuck, Sirius, Sirius._

The small of Remus’s back hits the sink and he shivers away from it, repeating _fuck, Sirius, fuck_ silently, aloud, he can’t really tell if his lips are moving but he can hear it muffled and fuzzy anyway. 

It takes a minute to fade, to realize he’s pressed against the wall with Sirius knelt before him, waiting to be able to help. 

“Moony?” Sirius’s eyes lift. 

Remus starts crying, silently, at the use of his nickname, _finally._ Sirius reaches forward, checks with a furrowed brow, and Remus nods that it’s fine. Sirius holds him, swiping hot tears off his cheeks with his fingertips. 

“Padfoot,” Remus whispers. “Padfoot, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened, I didn’t mean for any of it.”

“I know,” Sirius shushes him when Remus’s breathing gets raggedy, “I know, Moony, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

Remus twists in his grasp, resting his head in the crook of Sirius’s neck and breathing in the lemongrass and lavender and smoke scent of him. 

After a few long minutes of silent support, Sirius takes Remus’s hand, the skin still hot, and presses a kiss to his palm. “Your miso’s probably cold by now.”

“Yeah,” Remus agrees. He tucks his face into Sirius’s shoulder, questioning this sudden closeness, but too afraid to say anything about it lest he break the spell. 

Sirius lays his cheek on the top of Remus’s head. “We should go eat, at least. You haven’t eaten much today.”

 _The irrefutable joy of someone caring._ “Yeah,” Remus whispers. “Yeah, okay.”

Back at the table, Sirius offers Remus a tuna roll, and even though he doesn’t like fish, Remus accepts it as the peace offering it is. Sirius laughs when he makes a face eating it, but Remus washes it down with a long sip of water and returns the gesture with one of his own avocado rolls, and then they share a plate of prawn tempura after finishing the rest. 

And it’s okay. It’s good, even. 

—

On the walk back to their hotel, without saying a word, Sirius reaches between them to knot their fingers together. 

Remus holds his hand tightly on crosswalks, through a park, past retail clothing stores and souvenir shops. 

He glances to the side, their joined hands swinging between them, to see a dark-skinned young woman smile companionably at him and Sirius. She leans over and kisses the blonde woman with her, who puts her phone down to cup her face and smile. Sirius sends them a little wave. 

Remus doesn’t drop Sirius’s hand to fumble with the keys or kick the door open, and Sirius doesn’t drop Remus’s hand to plant the two containers of dessert they’d picked up on the way back on the marble countertop. 

And so, over melting ice cream and champagne glasses half-full of water, Sirius and Remus talk. About anything, everything, what they have and never really filled each other in on. It feels like a first time. 

“See,” says Sirius, through a mouthful of Half Baked, “I never knew what the fuck your sexuality was, right? You never told us this, we sorta just,” he waves his spoon magnanimously, flecking Remus with vanilla ice cream, "Let it lie.”

“You walked in on me snogging Benjy Fenwick in fifth year is what you did,” Remus says, amusedly. “I’m sure it wasn’t hard.”

“You never brought it up!”

“Neither did you!” Remus trills right back. “What was I supposed to do, _talk_ about it?”

“Yes!” Sirius cries. “After that I only saw you with girls—”

“I was a little embarrassed and comphet settled in pretty quickly,” Remus interrupts, but Sirius pays him no mind. 

“But there was your _girlfriend_ ,” Sirius sets forward earnestly, “And you were with her _so_ long.”

Remus laughs; he can’t help it. “What, Becs? I was sixteen, arsehole, and _so_ in the closet. And I _think_ she was a closeted lesbian.”

“Well, _I_ didn’t want to draw conclusions. And then when it never happened again, for years…” Sirius trails off. Remus had a bit of a dry spell with boys, while he was buried in denial. 

Miscommunication after miscommunication, Remus thinks somewhat mournfully. They lost so much time. 

Sirius brings him back to earth with a tap to his nose.

“Moving on. Let’s talk about how there was never any doubt with _me_.” Sirius flicks Remus with ice cream again, this time purposefully, a smug grin lacing his lips. 

Remus snorts and stuffs a spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough in his mouth, speaking through it. “You showed up at James’s in the middle of the night yelling ‘I’m gay, fuck you all’ over and over, what _doubt_ could there _possibly_ have been? It’s an unfair comparison.”

“Says you,” retorts Sirius. “Anyway, I’m only pointing it out.”

“I still think I should take no blame in panicking and punching you when you and James and Peter burst in on me. Poor Benjy nearly died, I wonder if he ever did come out.”

“Oh, that punch was hilarious, but we’re _not_ going down the memory lane,” Sirius groans. “Fucking no. Come on. Eat your damn ice cream and be happy that I finally know that you’re not a straight experimenter.” 

Remus licks his spoon, giving Sirius a reproachful glance. “I’m not, and I’m a little offended you thought I would do that.”

 _It was real it wasn’t a mistake it was real I promise please it was real I meant to do it pissed or not it was_ _real_ _—_

“But when you—” Sirius hesitates, digging his spoon into his ice cream, mixing it around. “In the pool, you weren’t just—”

“I didn’t do it because I was drunk,” Remus says forcefully. “I didn’t do it because I was questioning and experimenting. Even if I _was,_ I wouldn’t use you like that.”

Sirius gives a small nod. 

Remus continues, now ticking off the things he says on his fingers, “I kissed you because you’re you, Sirius, Padfoot, and maybe I had some liquid courage in me but that doesn’t take away that I kissed you because I _wanted_ to, and I was done pretending you aren’t the one I want.”

Sirius says, his voice cracking, “But you said it was a mistake.”

Remus shoves his ice cream aside to scramble for Sirius’s hand, squeezing his fingers tightly. Sirius startles a little. “Sirius! I was panicking! I kissed you and you didn’t even fucking move, of course I tried to play it off.”

“The first thing you did was apologize.”

“Because you couldn’t even look at me. What was I supposed to think? And then you were with Tom, and— after that, I heard you and him, and I—” Remus focuses hard on the granite countertop. The memory stings. 

Sirius winces. “I— it was a mistake. Tom was a mistake, we broke up for good in the middle of the night and he left. I’ll never see him again, you won’t. It was a shitty thing, all of it.”

Remus scratches at a divot in the counter. “I hated him.”

Sirius sighs glumly, his voice remorseful. “I know.”

“So?” Remus pulls his ice cream closer to him and takes another bite. “We’ve established I kissed you because I bloody fucking love you, Sirius, and that you somehow got _hurt_ by me reacting _normally_ to denial and zero reciprocation—”

“Hold on, I sense some bitterness here,” Sirius breaks in. 

Remus clicks his tongue. “Well, I’m not sorry for it.”

“Wait, hang on.” Sirius’s voice is odd, strangled. He stares at Remus’s hand in his on the counter. “Remus, you… you—”

Remus licks his spoon and shrugs cavalierly. The shiver of anxiety in his stomach is trivial and he does his best to banish it. “Love you? Yeah. I do.”

 _Even saying it is cathartic,_ he finds himself thinking. _Who knew._

Sirius doesn’t speak for a while, evidently mulling that over. He’s silent. He’s been silent a lot recently. Remus wonders if it’s his fault, and he wonders what about himself Sirius had begun to hear, now that he’s so quiet. 

He wonders if he shouldn’t’ve been so forward. If he’s made Sirius leery of this, of him. 

Sirius abruptly pushes his stool back and stands, spoon clattering to the counter. His grey eyes are firm and fierce and darker than Remus has ever seen them.

Remus stands too, an undeniable charge fizzling in the air. He’s pretty good at reading a room, pretty good at reading Sirius.

He meets Sirius halfway. They collide, Remus’s hand going to grip Sirius’s forearm and Sirius’s hand settling on the back of his neck, firmly pulling him inexorably, quickly closer. 

_This is where we kiss,_ he thinks dazedly. This is the cataclysm, the climax, the peak of _everything,_ and then they _are,_ kissing furiously, not gentle, not slow, not careful, a clash of _I want you, I want you_ and _finally finally finally_ and Remus is drowning in it, flying with it. 

Sirius kisses with his whole body and Remus curves into it, presses into it, there they are, in the kitchen of this one-bed one-couch hotel room with dust and mildew gathering in the corners. Holding each other up because they’ve forgotten to stand on their own but _they have each other. I’m yours, you’re mine._ Remus whispers it breathlessly and hears Sirius answer in kind and it drives him _wild._

Remus pushes Sirius against the cupboards, a cabinet door banging, but Sirius grapples with it to make sure it clicks shut and he lets Remus hold him, pin him against the wall, twisting Sirius’s silky hair around his fingers to ground him in this sensation. Remus tears his lips from Sirius’s to kiss a reverent path down his neck, across his jaw and collarbone. Sirius pants and knots his hands in Remus’s hair and murmurs _Remus_ and _please_ and _I love you._

It’s done. It’s done, Remus may weep with it all, he may scream his hallelujah and hurl poetry into the air, but he settles for holding Sirius tightly, so tightly, reveling in his stuttering breath and little pleas. 

“Oh _fuck,_ Remus, I love you too,” Sirius gasps, and Remus is dizzy with it, this outpouring of— of _love,_ of _feeling,_ of fiercely bright, uncontrollable joy like a wildfire. “I love you too, I love you too, I love you, I love you, I love you _so_ much and I’m going to spend the rest of my life saying it, I’ll tell you _every_ day, _Remus.”_ His voice breaks and Remus clutches him. 

Remus can feel it. He feels that string and it’s golden hot now, coiled in his chest. He likes thinking that Sirius has a matching one, maybe he does, because Sirius is clinging to his chest and repeating his love over and over, as if he can hardly believe it’s Remus in his arms. 

But Remus has his string, and that’s all that matters.

—

They sleep twined around each other that night, the acres of space of the past weeks gone. Remus drops kisses on every inch of Sirius’s skin he can reach as he falls off to sleep, and Sirius’s dazed, sleepy smile and thick murmurs of honey-sweetness with each one are worth the world. Sirius cuddles like it’s his last night on Earth and Remus can’t _possibly_ dredge up any complaints, no matter how hot or squished he is by Sirius’s limpet-like temperament. 

—

Remus wakes to Sirius flitting kisses over the arm he’s got around Sirius’s chest, kissing the freckles on the inside of his wrist. 

He presses his lips to the nape of Sirius’s neck, the knobs of his spine. His skin is smooth and warm. “Morning.”

“I love you,” Sirius hums. 

Remus smiles against his back. “I love you _so_ much.”

“Always have to outdo me, hm?” Sirius twists, sheets tangling around his legs, and puts one hand on Remus’s jaw to pull him into a deep, sweet kiss. 

“Always do,” Remus agrees. “Mm. What should we do today?”

Sirius pulls back just enough so that Remus can see his mischievous smile. “I vote we don’t leave bed _all day long.”_

“What about food?” 

Sirius’s grin is now wicked. “I’m sure I could find _something_ to eat.”

“It’s too early for this,”Remus moans, burying his head in the pillow. “You dirty little—”

“Holy shit, Moons, are you _blushing?”_

“Fuck off!”

“I love you.”

“Mmph. Same.”

Sirius peels Remus’s hands away from his face, incredulous. “Did you just say _same?_ What the fuck?”

“Mood,” Remus grumbles. 

Sirius laughs. Remus missed his laugh, missed his everything, missed the heat of his skin and creasing his eyes do at the corners when he smiles, completely uninhibited. “For that, Moonshine, you’re under attack.”

“What kind of— _ah!”_

“Tickle attack,” Sirius says maliciously, wiggling his fingers. 

“Fuck you!”

“ _Please.”_

Remus pulls the pillow off his face. “Okay.”

—

“Rest stop?” Sirius steps out of the car and stretches, his smile wide as he leans back in to kiss Remus slowly and deeply. 

Remus stays in the passenger seat when he pulls back. “I don’t know if I want to go home,” he says softly. 

Sirius reaches for his hand and settles his thumb on Remus’s knuckles. “Nothing will change between us, you know that, right?” He places a kiss to the back of Remus’s hand. “You and me.”

“I know,” sighs Remus. “I just don’t like things changing, even if it’s to change back.”

“We’ll be okay,” is all Sirius says, and he leans forward and kisses Remus, hard, until Sirius’s grey eyes are the only thought that sticks in his head. 

And Remus, maybe a little more than _just a little,_ believes it. 

**Author's Note:**

> & that’s that!


End file.
